Diet Coke And Mentos Essay

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Alex Khan Section-7
9-25-10

What happens when you mix Coke
and Mentos?

Introduction: Who would have ever guessed that dropping mentos chewy mints into a bottle of soda would produce viral reaction? My group and I describes the reaction as "this generation's reaction to vinegar and baking soda." The reaction, a giant eruption of soda, is as mysterious as it is sensational. Although the phenomenon of dropping candy and mints into soda to release the carbonation has been around for years, we still decided to give it a shot in our science experiment. Before I started this experiment, I knew some background information. As you probably know, soda pop is basically sugar (or diet sweetener), flavoring, water and preservatives. The thing that makes soda bubbly is invisible carbon dioxide gas, which is pumped into bottles at the bottling factory using tons of pressure. Until you open the bottle and pour a glass of soda, the gas mostly stays suspended in the liquid and cannot expand to form more bubbles, which gases naturally do. When you drop the Mentos into the soda, the gelatin and gum from the dissolving candy break the surface tension. This disrupts the water mesh, so that it takes less work to expand and form new bubbles. Each Mentos candy has thousands of tiny pits all over the surface. These tiny pits are contain perfect places for carbon dioxide bubbles to form. As soon as the Mentos hit the soda, bubbles form all over the surface of the candy.

Problem: The problem in our experiment is which soda causes a faster reaction when mentos is added to it. Will it be diet Coke or regular Coke?

Hypothesis: If think if we palace the mentos in the regular Coke, then it will have a faster and a higher eruption reaction because it contains more carbonates and sugar, rather than a diet Coke.